Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a case search device and method, and more particularly relates to a technology of searching for case data with use of image search and text search.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, health care professionals such as doctors perform a physical examination of patients based on diagnosing images obtained from medical diagnostic imaging devices such as CT and MRI devices. In such diagnostic imaging, diagnostic accuracy can be enhanced by referring to diagnostic data on diagnosing images taken in past examinations. Accordingly, diagnosing images taken in the past and diagnostic data thereon are accumulated in a database as case data, and case data similar to a diagnosing image are retrieved from the database.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-5364 discloses a technology to provide an ROI (region of interest) within an object image, to search for similar image data, which has an image characteristic similar to that of image data P′ on the ROI, and diagnostic data thereon, and to display search results on a monitor.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-117936, a technology is described which is to set a region of interest in an inputted three-dimensional image, to calculate a feature value of the region of interest, and to extract similar images with use of the feature value.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-325458 discloses a technology to search for image data P2, which represents a similar case of the case in image data P1 that is a diagnosis target, by image analysis, to search for diagnostic data D2 relevant to the image data P2 and diagnostic data D3 including disease state information similar to the disease state information on the image data P1, to determine candidate disease information on the image data P1 with use of the diagnostic data D2 and D3, and to output it to a display device.
According to these technologies, it becomes possible to appropriately search for the cases similar to a diagnosing image from a database having a large number of images.
However, in the technologies of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-5364 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-117936, when multiple image searches are performed for one diagnosing image with its ROI varied, search results prior to ROI variation are not immediately reflected, so that a search needs to be repeated under the same condition.
Also in the case of performing multiple image searches and then performing multiple text searches in the technology of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-325458, the text searches are to be performed against the results of a past image search, which is a cumbersome operation disadvantageously taking time and effort.
The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a device and method for case search which can enhance search efficiency by allowing easy reference to past search histories.